


in possibility

by orphan_account



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 16:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6761269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Jessica wonders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in possibility

**Author's Note:**

> a short piece I wrote very quickly on a whim. it's dark, of course. The title is taken from "i dwell in possibility" by emily dickinson. I considered what that might mean for someone like Jessica -- if she were to explore the possibilities and alternative outcomes of her trauma -- and I created this.

She wondered about him, she really did.

She hated that about herself. Sometimes she blamed him for it. Sometimes she blamed her own fucked-up mind, regardless of it having once been the stolen property of Kevin Thompson. She may have reclaimed it damaged and broken, but she was in control of her real brain once again. It was nobody’s thoughts but her own.

She wondered what would have happened if the bus crash had never occurred, if he'd never made her kill Reva. Maybe he’d have kept her forever, grown old with his plastic Jessica Doll. Maybe they would’ve had kids and played house. Unlikely, but perhaps somewhere in the back of his head he would’ve understood that it was all very lovely and it was all not real. He wouldn’t, Jessica knew, have cared either way.

Maybe he would have grown tired of her and killed her or left her in a state of helplessness, scared and missing him. Except sometimes, though, he would imply to her that she was it for him, mumble as he stroked her hair at night or while he held her hand on their way back to their hotel after dinner. _We’re in it for the long run, Jessica._

She doubted now that he’d even believed himself when he said that; he’d likely only said it because he enjoyed playing the part, one half of a happy couple in love, speculating on their relationship, their whole lives ahead of them. She’d believed him, though. _Yes_ , she’d said, eyes like glass, lips pulled into a smile. _We’re in it for the long run._

She wondered what it would have been like to talk to him on even ground, neither of them afraid, both of them harnessing their power not to defeat and control the other but instead to communicate like human beings living through the shared experience of being not-quite-human. She wondered what he did internally to cope with existing in a world that was all laid out for him.

She wondered what it would be like to cut him open and watch him bleed to death slowly, the light leaving his eyes (he always lit up when he looked at her, she knew). She wondered what it would be like to punch him to death like he made her do to Reva. She considered these things and wondered if he’d driven her insane, made her evil.

She liked to think that she hated him, totally, with nothing else in her heart except cold black loathing. And yet she wondered, also, if this wasn't true. To feel such an all-consuming love for someone, to not need to look around anymore, to not want to look around for anything because all that you need and want in life is wrapped up in one beautiful person who has reassured you that he is doing this for you, doing everything for you — her feelings were artificial, driven by rage, but they had existed in her head, and left an indelible mark, and she wondered what that mark meant.

Jessica wrapped her lips around her coffee mug and breathed out through her mouth. She watched the liquid jump and ripple against the force of her exhale. She stared at her hands; fingernails dirty and ragged, a cut on the side of her left pointer finger.

She wondered what she must have looked like to other people. The nameless faces who passed them by on the sidewalk while he talked about _the long run_ and she grinned at him like his dreams didn’t seem so far off, not to her. The hotel employees who watched her grasp his hand and allow him to lead her to the elevator, down hallways, to their room, as she sometimes giggled and kissed his shoulder and sometimes just gazed at him with so, so much adoration. The staff at restaurants who saw them hold hands across the table, all stroking thumbs and low voices and doe eyes. They must have thought she was lucky.

She wondered about what it would be like if the night they met had happened differently. If he had not possessed her and destroyed her mind.

She wondered, worst of all, if she would have loved him, had he just asked her out for coffee the next day, walked her home in the rain.


End file.
